The present invention relates generally to automotive accessories and, more particularly, to devices for placement in a cargo area of an automobile to protect the cargo area when carrying items which can potentially soil or damage the cargo area.
Historically, pickup trucks have been the vehicle of choice for farmers and workmen who have need to carry large, bulky, or heavy cargo on a regular basis, but pickup trucks have limited capacity for carrying passengers. Station wagons have the capacity to carry an equal number of persons as normal passenger automobiles and also provide a larger cargo area than the trunk of a typical passenger vehicle. However, station wagons are characteristically built on a passenger vehicle chassis and, moreover, their cargo areas are still typically rather shallow so that station wagons are generally unsuitable for carrying heavy loads. In more recent years, a hybrid class of personal automobile which combines characteristics of both pickup trucks and station wagons has become increasingly popular. Such automobiles, commonly referred to as sport utility vehicles, provide a fully enclosed body with seating for four or five adults much like a station wagon, but the body typically provides a taller cargo area to provide the capability of carrying larger, bulkier loads and is built on a truck chassis to enable the vehicle to carry much heavier loads than a common station wagon.
Despite the intent of automobile manufacturers that such sport utility vehicles would be usable for many of the same cargo purposes as pickup trucks, manufacturers have typically outfitted the cargo areas of sport utility vehicles with carpeting and similar appointments as are commonly used in station wagons, making many sport utility vehicle owners reluctant to utilize their cargo areas to carry materials which could potentially soil or damage the cargo area, e.g., gravel, sand, straw or pine needle bales, mulches, etc.
Various items have been marketed and others have been proposed to serve as a temporary liner for protecting the cargo area of a sport utility vehicle when utilized to carry such potentially soiling or damaging materials. One such commercially available product is formed of a flexible padded fabric having floor and side panels which are attached to the carpeted interior of the cargo area using hook-and-loop type fasteners. While this product provides protection for the cargo area, its flexible padded fabric material makes it difficult or nearly impossible to shovel bulk cargo such as gravel, sand, mulches, etc., out of the cargo area. Also, since sport utility vehicles of differing manufacturers have varying sizes of cargo areas, the product must be manufactured in a variety of differing models and sizes, which is highly inconvenient to retail establishments which therefore are required to stock the varying models of fabric liners. A competing product comprises a relatively shallow tray to be placed on the floor of a sport utility vehicle's cargo area. Disadvantageously, the shallow nature of the tray limits its capacity for carrying bulk materials without risk of spillage into the cargo area. Also, this product must necessarily be produced in a variety of sizes, thus suffering the same disadvantage as the padded fabric liner described above. Another commercially available product is in the nature of a simple rubber mat placed on the floor of a vehicle cargo area, but this product offers the least protection for the cargo area in that it has no capability for side containment of cargo materials. Moreover, this product also must necessarily be produced in a variety of differing sizes, posing the same inventory problems as the other products described above. Other forms of protective liners for sport utility vehicles are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,765,671; 4,893,862; and 5,110,171, but these products are not known to have been produced commercially.